"What would it do to a cost of a hamburger if all the employees at a mcdonalds had to be flown in from several states away?"

If each burgerflipper had their individual and special variation on flipping a burger, and everything about the Big Mac they produced was predicated on their particular skills, style, taste and experience, the argument might have some validity.

As it is, you seem to be suggesting that all folk singers are essentially interchangable. Don't think you'll get many takers for this.

Talking to a friend who regularly used to book musicians to play live, lots of different factors come into play: the size of the proposed venue, what size of audience is likely, how much the organiser can afford, how much promotion and publicity they are able to do, how much the artist charges, what they themselves might do to promote the gig, the repuation of the organiser etc etc. In and amongst all these factors, a mutually acceptable fee would generally be agreed. If not, the gig didn't happen. He used to occasionally fly artists over from the States for one-off gigs who he knew would draw a big enough crowd to pay the performance fee and the air fare: in cases such as these transport costs did make a difference, but he was still able to make an informed decision based on likelihood of breaking even. Sometimes he did sometimes he didn't. The same outcomes applied to musicians coming a few miles down the road. What I do know is that if he hadn't been prepared to take a few risks with his money, I'd have missed a good few marvellous gigs... (Cheers, Nick!)